ANTI-COUNTERFEIT
DETECTABLE ADDITIVES

Detectable additives are invisible to the naked eye, but enable the identification of genuine articles using simple detection techniques.

With trade in counterfeit goods at an all time high, and businesses often unable to easily distinguish them from genuine products, our detectable additives can be embedded during manufacture as a quick and easy method of confirming or disputing any suspicions.

Where manufacturing is outsourced, the use of a detectable additive alongside our antimicrobial or magnetic/x-ray additives will act as a quality assurance procedure, verifying both the authenticity of the product and the inclusion of the other additives.

Detectable additives can either run throughout the entire material of a product or individual components can be singled out to verify a product’s authenticity, such as in a fabric tag on an item of clothing. The ‘treated’ component can be changed with each production batch; rotating through several components provides further security, while also improving batch traceability.

UV BRIGHTENERS

Perhaps the most economical and straightforward means of creating a means of authentication is a simple optical brightener, which fluoresces under UV light.

MICRO-TAGGANTS

Micro-taggants are a more sophisticated means of identification. Custom designed particles utilise a combination of coloured layers to represent a unique numeric code sequence. The taggants are typically identified using a microscope.

LASER DETECTABLE

Laser detectable or ‘anti-stokes’ phosphors are an excellent means of quick identification. While the technology is widely used and non-unique, the laser pen ‘reader’ is inexpensive, making it ideal for swift QA assessment.

'LAYERED' APPROACH

While each means of detection has its individual benefits, by utilising two or more of the additives it is possible to create a more robust, ‘layered’ solution.